


The Heart of a Father

by iamthegps



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Gen, HARD, I'm experimenting with form, Napoleon's crazy family, and for the love of God don't mess with his children, don't mess with Papa Solo he will fuck you up, feedback is appreciated, i'm so proud of me, my very first U.N.C.L.E. story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthegps/pseuds/iamthegps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria survives the bomb and makes good on her threat to Napoleon. Pity she doesn't realize just how bad of an idea that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart of a Father

**Author's Note:**

> "The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature." -Antoine François Prévost

Benjamin Solo was not raised to hurt women. It was one of the first lessons his ma taught him, along with washing before he eats and reading his Bible every evening: no good man ever hurts a woman.

(He thinks he can make an exception this time, though.)

When he gets run off the road by some thug in a car that costs more than his house, forced into a shack and tied to a chair, and made to listen to a speech by some British blonde about getting her revenge, he's just baffled. But when she snaps her fingers and has his boy dragged into the room and tied, lying unconscious in a corner, he feels his pulse going in his ears in a way he hasn't since the Great War.

(He remembers the explosions, the sudden shock of _me or him_ , of being forced to choose when you'd be happy to walk away.)

She leaves them alone, waiting for his boy to wake up before she begins her 'little game' and for a brief moment Benjamin feels the sort of overwhelming fear and despair that he's only ever experienced once before. He is selfishly glad that it's his life at risk this time, that he doesn't have to watch. 

(He remembers when Napoleon is born, too sickly and too early and so small that Benjamin sits and holds him in one hand, watching as he fights. Napoleon will always be a fighter but he's born at home, in the night, and no doctor can get to them until tomorrow. When he begins to gasp and turn blue Benjamin swears that he's dying right along with his son.)

His despair is a quick and fleeting thing, though. What you're willing to die for, his pa always said, you oughta be willing to kill for too. Napoleon hasn't stirred, so he knows he's got time. He reaches for the knife in his boot.

(He remembers he is little, maybe ten years old. He sits with his grandpa in front of the fire when the old man shows him his scars. They're like cat claws, but big, and grandpa tells him about the cougar that tried to make a meal of him and then he tells him one very important thing: always carry a knife.)

It takes some twisting but he gets it, clumsily cutting himself loose and stretching the kinks out of his back before he kicks the chair over. The thugs come running but he knocks them both out. He doesn't care about them. He cares about _her_.

(She's just like a cougar, Benjamin figures- pretty to look at, and eager to kill.)

It's a short fight, and he takes her by surprise. Sinks his knife between her ribs and feels a terrible sadness when she falls to the ground.

(He'll never know that she dies like her husband.)

Napoleon is still out, so Benjamin frees him and carries him gently to the truck. He drives home and comforts his wife, promising to tell her later after he bandages his wrist and cleans his knife, knowing that he'll leave much of it out.

(It ain't the first secret he'll take to his grave, and it ain't the last.)

When he gets home later he hides the shovel in his truck and the dirt under his fingernails- all the dead deserve a resting place, even she- and tells the now awake Napoleon the story he's made up, that he had just arrived at their door and passed out and no, he didn't know why and nothing else had happened. 

(And Napoleon believes him, because that kid ain't the only one who can spin a line.)

He watches Napoleon sleep that night and though he never wanted to hurt that woman he'd kill her all over again to keep his boy alive. His own rest, he knows, will be undisturbed. Napoleon leaves the next day and Benjamin drives him to the county airport, and if he hugs him tighter and longer than usual Napoleon doesn't complain.

(He watches the plane until it vanishes into the clouds and says yet another prayer for his son's safety before he goes.)

He will wonder later, idly, if he ought to have told his son the truth but then he'll remember the blood on his knife, the dirt in his fingernails, and the glee in her voice and he will know he's done right. A good father protects his children at every expense, keeps them safe at cost to himself, and he refuses to be anything less. 

(Just as he predicted, Benjamin Solo sleeps fine that night. In New York City, so does his son.)


End file.
